Whitney Houston Funeral Closed To Public

Whitney Houston will be honored friday at noon in a funeral service at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. Houston was found dead in her Beverly Hills hotel room Saturday afternoon. Officials are still waiting on toxicology reports to determine the cause of her death, but many believe it could have been the result of an interaction between drugs and alcohol in her system. She was found unconscious in her bath tub and it is possible that she became unconscious, slipped under the water, and drowned.

Alan Jacobs, who was head of security for Houston for nearly a decade, was interviewed by Good Morning America today and he revealed some interest details about the pop singers life. When asked about her drug abuse, he claims that he never saw her use anything, but that he did see some traumatic effects as a result of use:

“The reality of it is, that you can protect someone from everything, but you cannot protect them from themselves,”

“Whatever was going on, was not something that was in control, and certainly was something I felt needed to be addressed. so I took action to address it. I eliminated access to her by certain people that I thought were negative influences.”

Jacobs reports that he tried to speak to Whitney about her drug abuse and he also spoke to her husband, Bobby Brown to warn him, but it was not welcome concern from either party. He explains:

“I said, ‘you hired me to do a job, to protect you … but I cannot protect you from yourselves.’ I took a stand and it was about four months later that we decided to part company,”

“It would seem that a closer eye might have been kept, but there again there’s an old saying that the boss may not always be right, but the boss is always the boss.”

Her service at the New Hope Baptist Church will be attended by invitation only, but there are plans for a larger service to be held at the New Jersey’s Prudential Center which could accommodate as many as 20,000 guests. Nothing has been announced yet but we will be following the story.